New York Trip Part 4: Water Under the Bridge

In case you missed the earlier parts of our New York trip report:

New York Trip Part 1: Using Miles and Points
New York Trip Part 2: Friday Night Lights 
New York Trip Part 3: Saturday in the Park

We slept in a bit on Sunday morning and headed to the hotel breakfast buffet around 9:00 a.m. After breakfast, we walked about a mile to the pier to catch a Circle Line boat tour. We purchased tickets ahead of time for the 11:30 a.m. Landmark Cruise.

It was a beautiful day to see New York City from the water. The forecast originally predicted rain, but it cleared up early.

The boat held a few hundred people, and it was full. We sat on the top deck for this cruise that lasted approximately 2 hours. Even though it was a Sunday afternoon, there were only a handful of kids on board (and they seemed bored). If we come back to NYC with our kids, we would probably book a different boat tour, like this one geared for kids.

Our tour guide told us a lot of history and interesting facts along the cruise, including the history of Madison Square Garden, the early rivalry between the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building and the World Trade Center.

I took lots of photos on this cruise...here are some highlights:

Ellis Island

Statue of Liberty

Lower Manhattan

East Manhattan

The Brooklyn Bridge

The World Trade Center

After the landmark cruise, we were hungry. We stopped at this diner for some Italian and Greek food.

After lunch, we had the rest of the afternoon and evening wide open. We decided to take a subway and walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.

The bridge is beautiful. It was super crowded, though. The lane for walking is narrow, and there was not a lot of room to stop and take in the sights due to the constant push of people behind us. Perhaps it is less crowded on a weekday.

After the bridge, we walked to a bike shop for Brian to buy a souvenir. We were close to China Town and debated whether we should explore it...but we were pretty wiped out and it was getting close to the end of the day. Instead, we rode the subway back to our hotel and walked a few blocks to this restaurant we saw earlier in the trip.

City Lobster--decent seafood. We enjoyed our last quiet dinner together.

After dinner, we walked back to Rockefeller Center to buy a mug that caught our eye the other night. There were lots of people milling about outside there, and a band was playing to a small crowd.

Before turning in for the night, we said our last goodbyes to Times Square.

We caught the NYC Airporter bus the next morning with no issues to LaGuardia Airport. After a connecting flight, we made it to our house in the early evening.

We are so thankful we were able to go on this special trip! Thanks to Brian's mom for watching our kiddos. And thanks to a few of my favorite blogs (Million Mile Secrets, Miles for Family, Mommy Points) for all the tips for traveling on miles and points!

Of course, there are a lot of sights we did not get to see on this trip. We would like to go back in a few years with our kids. My ideal trip would be 3-4 nights in NYC, and then take a train for 3-4 nights at this place in the Catskills:

Mohonk Mountain House

Thanks for reading my New York trip report!

What is your favorite thing to do in New York City?